


Winter’s Ruin

by dubbledore



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 09:33:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1894092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dubbledore/pseuds/dubbledore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>To some, kings were gods.</i>
</p>
<p>Stannis-centered ficlet set during ADWD, based on the prompt "What have I done?" Gen, with Stannis/Davos undertones (if you squint with great concentration).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter’s Ruin

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by a song called "[Winters Ruin](http://ghostsivemet.bandcamp.com/track/winters-ruin)" by Ghosts I've Met. Not particularly relevant, but the phrase stuck with me and it's a nice song anyway.

_Dark wings, dark words._ So the northmen were ever fond of saying.  
  
And what of the white ravens, sent forth from the Citadel to forebode summer’s end and the hardships of winter? Stannis thought he could still remember the first time he had ever seen one of the snow-white birds in Storm’s End, when he was a boy of scarcely four. He had been very young indeed, so it was, of course, entirely possible that he’d later fabricated the memory based on what he had been told afterward. The way Cressen told it, his younger self had observed that the color of the bird’s feathers matched its droppings, and asked how that was so.  
  
_The gods fashioned it to be white to herald the winter snows_ , Cressen had answered, and Stannis had nodded, satisfied.  
  
He did not believe in the Seven any longer, had long since abandoned the idea that anything in this world came about by forces not directly ascribed to men. Even R’hllor, this Lord of Light worshiped by the greater part of his army, was not exempt. Melisandre said the sacrifice of king’s blood pleased her fire god, but all that the leeches bloated with Edric Storm’s blood had ever proved was that her gift for prophecy was no mere trick.  
  
No god would choose Stannis Baratheon, second-born son of Steffon and Cassana, to be its ageless hero.  
  
With a restraint that surprised himself, Stannis fingered the edge of the wrinkled parchment that had arrived this morning.  
  
No god would see the head of Davos Seaworth, his most faithful and trusted knight these many years, tarred and placed on a spike for the amusement of White Harbor.  
  
_See there? A common smuggler, raised to a lord, a King’s Hand_ , they would be jeering. _And to what king? A pretender, a king without a throne._  
  
To some, kings were gods. Were that the case, no less than Stannis himself had beheaded Davos and made a mockery of how far Lord Seaworth had traveled from his meager, ignoble beginnings. No less than Stannis himself had left Davos’s three remaining boys—loyal Devan, young Steffon and Stannis, the king’s own namesake—without a father. And no less than Stannis himself had made a widow of Marya Seaworth, the wife who had given Davos seven strong sons. Whom he had loved so dearly.  
  
The king crushed the parchment in his fist, his grief giving way to anger again. He was bone-tired of this bickering between the northmen and his southron knights these past several days. But now the way forward was evident. They would march on Winterfell. The Boltons would kneel, and all the North with them. And White Harbor would pay its just dues.  
  
_Winter is coming._ So went the words of Winterfell, the heart of the North. Stannis stared out of the window into the snowy wood surrounding Deepwood Motte, every sliver of it an icy shade of blue in the growing dusk. _Winter is already here._


End file.
